CCD-world: CCD cleaning

[Alain Maury]

The following was posted to CCD-world:

What I am doing here is the following:
- I have built a special mount which holds a binocular on top of the CCD cold
box, able to focus on the CCD surface. I can choose several magnifications.
- I have a lamp which shines at grazing incidence on the CCD (at least as low
as it is possible).
The whole thing is on a table in a clean room (otherwise, the CCD gets dirty
on one side by about the time you think you have clean it all).
- After several tries with different things, I have come up with the
following: I cut small triangles of Tyvek, about 3 to 4cm long, 1 or 2 cm
large at the base. Tyvek is a plastic fiber type paper. We have a stock of
them since we used them as photographic plates envelopes (so Roy, ask Bill
Schoening). It is chemically neutral, and does not leave any traces on the
CCD. I can use them as little broom on the CCD surface, you just have to be
careful with the bonding wires of course. The dust are trapped in the few
fibers at the tip of the triangle, and from time to time, you cut the tip of
the triangle to get a clean tip again. When the triangle is too short, make
another one. Works well for me, this is for thick CCDs of course, and I'd be
interested in how to broom a thinned CCD. I don't feel like touching the
surface of a thinned one with anything.
All the other methods I have tested were not able to "unstick" things from the
CCD surface, and any gas jet would bring more dust than it was removing.
Alain

Roy Tucker wrote:

> The following was posted to CCD-world:
>
> Ladies and Gentlemen of the forum,
>
>      We'll be using 60 Hz frame rate CCD cameras in our solar
> instrumentation. Unfortunately, we'll have to remove the glass from the
> sensor package so there will be a danger of getting dust on the imager.
> I've heard suggestions about single-hair camel's hair brushes but I've had
> bad results with such. Does anyone have alternative suggestions for
> removing those tenacious little particles? Has anyone ever experimented
> with CO2 snow guns such as are offered by Va-Tran Systems of Chula Vista,
> California? Thanks for any help.
>
>                                         Best regards,
>                                           - Roy Tucker
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